The final part of In the Balance expansion for Talisman 4ER is done. All three parts of this expansion are now available for download at TalismanIsland.com, courtesy of our gracious Jon New. In the future (but not too soon), I will likely consolidate all parts into one file and rework each part's documentation into one single manual. Until then, hopefully someone gets a bit of fun out the expansion as whole or in parts.

NOTE: All previous posted images have been removed my online storage and so will no longer appear in previous related topics.

I just downloaded this today, the adventure cards at any rate - i will download the rest later today and I must say it looks like a great expansion with plenty of detail and some nice card art to boot, how long did it take in all to put all this together JC? I just wanted to also ask about artwork for the cards, i went looking on deviant art and couldn't see an option for filtering it to get free to use stuff. I got turned down by one artist on a piece of art i wanted to use for a follower. Any other good sources?

dfb

dogfacedboyuk1 said:

On average, give or take a week, each part took about a month (some of them overlapping).

dogfacedboyuk1 said:

DA is not a place to look, as most artist are not going to give away their stuff for free... because when and if they sell production rights, it usually has to be exclusive.

My are was put together pieces as described in the "Notices" section in the documents that came with each expansion. None of the actual "art" is my own (I'm not that talented). Occassionally I found public domain, NFP, NCU, and other "photos" that I use art effects and plugins on to turn into card art (such as for "Labourer's Day.") However, moderate to extensive postwork was done on all of them in Photoshop CS4, sometimes taking anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours per illustration depending on complexity. I also have an extensive set of PS brushes, shapes, gradients, styles, etc.

And that doesn't count the hours of searching the internet for the pieces that were collaged together for many images. Putting together card illustrations without theifing from artists takes time, most of all.... and lots of it. Learn to use google, and expect to search dependly to determine rights on anything... knowing that about 1 in 100 images you find will be safe to use, and among those maybe 1 out of 5 will has a "piece" that is worth using if you can learn how to extract it from the image.

****... well, hopefully that last post is readable. All it takes is one slip up and there's no way to fix it in this forum.

Hmmm, you spent a long time on it then. I did see the notice included, but just wondered if you managed to find some kind of goldmine site. I have put a message out on elfwood which has a lot of great artists on it about a collaboration but in all honesty i cant see too much take up. I am thinking I will end up having to do it myself! Gulp.I even messaged Ralph Horsely cheekily and asked if he had any old personal pieces he would allow me to use (he didn't as he hasn't done any for years, all commissioned pieces). The other alternative is to keep the art to the more simplistic style of the early editions, which I am not keen to do for it really. I am trying to do this with my character bust project, but I prefer a modern style to illustrate the cards. I may still keep trying and persuade someone to allow me permission to use a nice piece of art for the cover of the manual though.

dfb

Yes, good artwork is a real challenge when working on your own. Professional artists, or those aspiring to become such, are reluctant to give away anything for free that will not at least promote them and their work directly in ways that might lead to paying commissions or preferably contracts for multiple jobs. And I know Elfwood and never may any queries there myself. Did try Deviant a long while back, but results were nil for me as well. Hence I set to doing the art myself.

You'll notice that in ITB Part 1 there are some questionable illustrations. That was back at the beginning of the project, when I did turn to some pregenerated images via my old archive of stuff from Juice Drops. Pretty limited options, and not the best, but they worked and were better for some general cards that what Elfwood could offer. In some cases I was able to combine layers from differing PSDs to get what I wanted... or simply alter or remove layers in a single pre-made PSD.

I wouldn't work too much about the manual. Illustrating that should be limited to exemplifying any unusual about the cards as a whole that differers or adds on to the make of the standard ones. You'll just be creating more work for yourself that doesn't really build the expansion. Stick to some nice border or icon graphics easily developed yourself and save some lost time and effort in completing and expansion.

Well, as I ve mentioned elswhere, the cards themselves are the first priority and I m in no rush so maybe someone will get in touch yet! I think i will work on graphics and decoration for the manual etc first, I will definately want that cover though. It is a shame that people aren't willing to allow use of their work in a free project where they will get credited anyway, especially where its maybe a piece they have done for fun or practice and serves them no other purpose. The company who are producing some of my busts (not the talisman ones) were quick to accept a freebie sculpt ithat i did for practice and turned out nicely in exchange for some favours ( I may well ask for a couple of coples of my talsiman busts to be made up as payment though!). If the work is done its no skin off their nose to allow its use after all. Nevermind though, it will allow me to exercise my rusty drawing skills.

dfb

Hello everyone. This is my first post on this forum.

I have observed it for some time, but lately I also wanted to write a few things.

And this is the first and most important thing. The "In the Balance" expansion is simply amazing. I really liked the new cards and mechanics. I have seen many expansions to many editions of Talisman and this is one of the best.

Sorry for actually bringing back an older thread but I didn't really knew where to write this. And I also have a couple of questions concerning in a way this expansion. So here it goes:

Since the release of In the Balance, Talisman has made a few steps forward, and now there are new expansions and most importantly new Adventure cards. The expansion was supposed to balance out the original game. So I was wondering two things:

Do you intend to maybe make some more cards?

But most importantly how do you actually play Talisman now?

I was just thinking that it would be possible to choose the best Adventure cards from the expansions and main game, and then maybe balance things out with your expansion. Thus my questions.

Anyway keep up the great work JC.

HI Artownik, glad you could jump in "live" so to speak. And I'm glad that ITB is giving you some fun. And until a topic is dead AND gone, it is fair game for revival.

Artownik said:

I'm always making more cards, and presently revising ITB... there are some problems with it as my very first attempt at a home made Talisman expansion. Some things need tweaking, some expanding, and even some things need to be cut that went to far... such as that third level of subcategories on Spell (it was just too much RPG stuck into a boardgame.)

But no, I have no plans for an ITB Part 2. Its main function was to provide something for Neutrality to be more than the alignment of no alignment, if anyone wanted to play it that way. And to provide some variance in encounters beyond random chance machines and pictures with the same ol' numbers. You can actually find such variations in FFG's commercial expansions as well, though they and I may differ in some of our approaches.

Artownik said:

Yes, I do. I live a little out of the way for may group, but we get together now and then. Most often I'm playing with Barb, just the two of us. We also play Runebound, having bought the game recently. Lately there haven't been many games, since we are buried under multiple books at different stages. At present, we play the base game with ITB, some of the 4ER "Retro" cards, and the recent Talisman Tasks. One of our friends has the 4ER Dungeon, and another has recently ordered up Frostmarch, so those will be in the mix now and then.

Artownik said:

Once you get into the commercial expansions, balance may be hard to find. To some degree, that is to be expected. Expansions, if they are not just supplemental, are often intended to change the game and refresh it in new ways. That's not something I would likely try to counter or "balance"; it would get way to complicated, aside from anything else. And there are too many other interesting things to work on that are autonomous. I am planning a second pack for Talisman Tasks, as well as more Retro cards for any other old schoolers out there who want (1) a previous version of a cherished card, and/or (2) an alternative to all the editions of a particular card. It keeps the mind alive after I've done too many passes through the novel before its goes off to my editor.

Thank you for your praise, and I hope you'll find others to chat with here as well. A number of them are also ardent creators of expansions (you may have already noticed such herein), as well as being ardent fans of the game. Don't forget to check out the commercial expansions, either directly or through topical discussions herein. I'll catch up with you more later.

Thank you for the answers JC.

I hope you don't mind if I ask about one more thing.

I understand your point of view on "balancing out the Talisman".

But I also thought that there's one more thing to this. I loved the cards which replace the original gold bags. Have you ever thought of creating some more to simply exchange all the remaining Bags of Gold?

Actually, if you wanted to, you could just print some extra ITB gold cards to do the replacing. But as I proceed with reworking ITB, I had thought of a couple of Gold coins that might be a little challenging to actually acquire.

What would you do if you spotted gold coin dropped in a partially broken but very active beehive? Do you really want it that badly?

JCHendee wrote:

What would you do if you spotted gold coin dropped in a partially broken but very active beehive? Do you really want it that badly?

I love this idea.

As for the cards that would replace the Bags of Gold, when I saw your cards, I made some replacements myself, just different ones, based on your Verdant Surge card. I would like to present here one of those ideas:

As you can see this is an Event card, from lack of better wording I named them Chance cards. As you can see the card plays differently based on your Alignment. It's up to you how you decide beforehand, you can either go with Alignment corresponding to yours, or you play that you can change your Alignment to the "nearest one" (meaning from Good to Neutral, but not possible to change straight to Evil and vice versa).

Sidenote: Jinx - opposite of Fate - meaning you use it on others forcing them to reroll.

Well, I thought I would show you this, I am not saying it's a great idea, just that maybe it will inspire you to something interesting. In most of these cards there is gold to aquire (since these are supposed to be replacements for gold bags).

The concept of doing something is always a good one when it comes to acquiring anything. It makes that game become and adventurer - for adventurers - instead of just a chance machine like play games such as Life, Shoots'n'Ladders, or even Monopoly in some ways. Also, putting Alignment to use in the game in ways that are not just automatic effects is a great notion that many of us hobby creators are doing. But overall, I am not a fan of Fate being used in the way it is in 4ER, where one can even re-roll a result generated by Stranger or other persona that as a "Fate" of its own. Soon enough, 4ER will see the introduction of "Dark" Fate, when a Fate point is used to force another player to make a re-roll. This is akin to your Jinx points.

Overall, this approach has a pervasive flaw. Fate is assigned to all individuals by the Universe, Higher Powers, Gods, whatever. Fate is individual and not the power of demigod to override the decreed Fate of others. Our group uses something called the True Fate system for Fate points. I don't have time to give you all the exact details right now, but I'm hoping to produce a "house rules" rules card for it later. Essentially, and adventure can use its Fate points to only affect rolls based on what it does and not on rolls for what someone or something else does, including the game's own personas (on cards or spaces). And Dark Fate, or Jinx, pushes that flaw even further.

Over the years, more and more the game has been pushed towards Player vs Player, but what this also means is that it has been pushed further away from Character vs Character. One of these is outside the game, the other is inside the game. And in the push for the outside PvP more and more, the inside CvC has been slowly crippled. This shows up in other mechanics as well. Old cards for movement control have been modified to make them more random. One example is the [Riding] Horse, which used to allow a Character to gain +1 or +2 on movement. The 4ER version is a straight 2D6 with no control at all vs its possible extra distant. This decreased the chance of actually choosing to try to encounter another Character.

Changes like this, for the sake of blind speed to get around the board, mistaking diminish the still minimal potential for CvC. The average player doesn't understand the difference between CvC and PvP. They think it is all PvP. Hence reduction of CvC was thought to be a reduction of PvP, and they wanted more PvP when they didn't know the difference. And Dark Fate appeared on the game's future horizon as a new innovation in PvP, if not a fix for mistakenly hobbling CvC.

So, what this comes down to is that I'm probably in the minority, but I would never lean on stuff that let's PvP substitute for expanding actual CvC. And that's what Dark Fate, and Jinx, are doing or will do. I prefer to find any small way for Characters... the actual adventurers... to interact vs giving more outside, godlike influence to players. Players are only "adventurers" when they operate through their characters and not outside of them.

I do think that card is a worthwhile addition as an Event card. But I wouldn't involve Dark Fate, by any name. And similar to this card you've probably already seen some of my ITB "Place - Challenge" cards which put a simplified 'adventure' into a turn, where something must be overcome to gain something. The old Cave card in the standard game was a completely backward notion, where you gained something if nothing was there to stand in your way.

So how did the gold get into that cave if nothing lived there? And if you defeated something living there, why didn't you find any treasure? It was an utterly, terribly designed card from the start.

Here's how I might do something similar to your card for 4ER. (NOTE: it is based on what I know of actual druidic doctrine rather than what talisman did with similar personas and that one Character card.) The second version is how I would change it for 2e

==========

Arch Druid (4ER)

Roll 1 die for his reaction to you (no Fate). Good gains +1; Evil takes -1; Neutral rolls 2 die and chooses 1.

0 Trapped! Lose 2 Turns
1 Cursed! -1 in Movement, Battle, and Psychic Combat for 2 rounds.
2 Lose 1 Fate or Life
3 Ignored
4 Ignored
5 Blessing! you may add +1 in Movement, Combat, & Pyshic Combat for 2 rounds.
6 Tutelage! Miss a Turn & Gain 1 Craft
7 Heal! Regain all lost Lives.

==========

Arch Druid (2E)

Roll 1 die for his reaction to you (no Fate). Good gains +1; Evil takes -1; Neutral rolls 2 die and chooses 1.

0 Trapped! Lose 2 Turns
1 Cursed! -1 in Movement, Combat, & Psychic Combat for 2 rounds.
2 Lose 1 Life or 1 Object
3 Ignored
4 Ignored
5 Blessing! you may add +1 in Movement, Combat, & Psychic Combat for 2 rounds.
6 Tutelage! Gain 1 Craft
7 Heal! Regain all lost Lives.

NOTE: I took out the "miss a turn" on #6 this time because overall Craft is harder to come by in 2E than in 4ER; it is still not as plentiful as Strength in 4ER.

Well, I do understand and I agree with most of what you said.

The CvC options in this game are rather minimal, and your examples do show that they have only made it worse. But I wouldn't say that the PvP is a bad thing. I am quite intrigued with your rules on Fate. The playstyle of using the Fate to change only your actions seems reasonable. But the Dark Fate or Jinx as I called it is a nice option for me, excellent one for an Evil Char.

What I don't like about the game is that the Alignment doesn't have it's "weight". It's mostly like: "Oh, I am Evil, I can use the Magical Sword. Ahh, I changed to Good - shame, because I have to find another weapon now."

In the cards I have created Good Chars usually have options to gain only Fate, Evil Chars on the other hand can mostly gain only the Dark Fate, and Neutral sometimes gain randomly and sometimes can choose which one to get. Because isn't it the definition of an Evil person to gain profit on someone's loss and to win, by making all the other lose?

I would say that it would be best to highten the level of P&C v P&C.

And as for the Arch Druid, I must say that from my point of view these changes look like a step back. I do not mean to be rude, I hope you understand, I really like your cards.

It's just that the Alignment in your version does not play a significant role, even with the inappropriate we can get quite good results.

And the other thing is, that I made fully written effects of the Event card, so that you would have a sense of what your actions actually do. It was specificly designed for board without random Alignment changes, so that one can "really play" the Char and think to what means and actions will I go to? Shall I seek profit no matter what? I wanted to push game over the random dice results and the "I got / lost some things". I also do not mean that random is a bad thing, just that there's place in this game for both.

I know this is all bit twisted, I mean not for children, but well, I made it for players I play with.

EDIT:

Forgot to mention, the option for Neutral in your Archdruid to roll twice and choose result is an interesting solution - I like it!

And I see now that you also wrote a 2nd Edition option, that's really nice of you. The note about gaining Craft is ofcourse true - good point and good change.